Book II: Doubt

Adventure, Love, Loss

The boy, a youth now, roved in foreign lands.
By palm and temple, over burning sands,
On camels and on horses, noting men
And manners many ; mountain, forest, glen.
Populous human hives, and alien
Taste, habit, ethnic custom, ethnic creed,
Whereby, as by the late-born Lore, a seed
Was sown of gradually matured misgiving,
If circumscribing faiths exhaust the living
Spirit of universal God indeed ?
Their niggard nourishment may hardly feed
The hunger of the human ; whose wide heart
Revolts from putting for the whole the part.
From an All-Father, who hath favourites,
Vainglory, pride, and arbitrary spites.
Revengeful jealousy ! how many bands
Are loosened while the growing soul e.xpands !
Some wholesome, dear, familiar ; wars engage
The upheaved, rent spirit, awful wars to wage !
A lone, long conflict, doubt, and grief, and rage ! . . .
In holy lands, in homes of ancient faith,
He journeyed, where our sacred story saith
The dear Lord lived and died for us ; he mused
Among the fallen pillars of disused
Shrines around Hermon or Mount Lebanon,
Whence all the worshippers and faiths are gone ;
Or in the golden-columned Parthenon,
The hills of olive near Jerusalem,
Far, fair Palmyra, holy Bethlehem ;
Where silent and serene Egyptian Nile
Engirdleth Philae, palm, and peristyle,
Nourishing Thebes and Memphis ; floating long
With moonlit sail, and oft a weird wild song
From dusky crews, where gorgeous eves illume
Sphinx, flame-y-pointing pyramid or tomb,
Storied with old-world mystic hieroglyph ;
There kings lie jewelled in the fiery cliff;
Solemn and silent in the chambered echoing clift".

Then rude and strange adventures him befel
With liihe and swarthy sons of Ishmael,
Full-vestmented in rainbow hues, fierce-eyed,
In Arab tents, or where dark men abide,
In marble-fountained courts by .Abanar ;
Behind fine lacework of the lattice are
Gazelle-limbed beauties ; realms of myrrh and musk.
Where in the warmth of an enchanted dusk
The minareted Muezzin calls to prayer,
Thrillingly waking a clear starlit air,
And one from Europe, wondering to be there.

And now beneath the whispering young palm,
Enjoying dewy evening's hushed calm.
He whispered with a beautiful lithe maid,
Who wore red flowers in her hair's dark braid ;
The girl had limpid eyes, a mellow tone ;
Her body girdled with the enchanted zone
Of Venus queen ; clear orbs came one by one
Through darkening ether, found them dallying on ;
At intervals they may behold them rise ;
Only they pore on heavenlier gleams in eyes
Of one another ; youth, and early love !
But Fate, with flaming sword, asunder drove,
And shut them out of Paradise.
Afar,
Beyond the wave, beneath a northern star.
Once more I found him with a blonder fere,
His faithful, helpful life-companion, dear
And beautiful ; who smoothed his fevered pillow.
Plucked with devoted hand from death's dim billow ;
Saved him, moreover, from a direr death,
Wherein sense robs of our Diviner breath.
Who saith the heart loves once, and never more ?
The youth loved twice, and both for evermore
His heart holds ; yea, the clinging tendrils twine
Round others fondly, passionately incline
To many a comrade, male or feminine.
Unto these later lovers was there born
A perfect child, fair, breezy like the morn,
All laughter, light, affection, health, and song,
Who, like a rill, danced near their path along.
But unaware fell into some abyss.
And left life songless, shadowed, reft of bliss.
Inventive leader in the nursery games,
Tender, considerate of alien claims.
Full wonderful to witness in a child !
Reflection budding in the leafiige wild
Of his luxuriant joy ; the parents said,
" A glorious manhood when we both have fled
One may divine for him ; our staff and stay,
When our own buoyant strength of life gives way,
Our son shall prove to us." In one brief year
Their living sunbeam shone no longer here !
He was no more ; the wild fate-sunken twain
Were left to wail, and yearn for him with pain
Immense, deep, unassuageable, and vain.
If ever shadowy difference involved.
His young life-shining all the cloud dissolved ;
And now their marriage-bond more binding grew
Over a little grave poor grief well knew.

Lost Lamb

He is gone, he is gone.
The beautiful child !
He is gone, he is gone.
And the mother went wild.
Babble all silent,
Warm heart is cold ;
All that remains now
The hair's living gold !
Summer hath faded
Out of his eyes.
On his mouth ne'er a ripple
Of melodies!
O where will be joy now,
To-morrow, to-day?
O where is our boy now ?
Far, far away !
Light is but darkness,
Unshining from him ;
Sound is but silence,
And all the world dim !
Spring's in the air !
I feel him to-day,
.Spring's in the air,
He's on his way !
Warmth in the air,
Cold in my heart,
Winter is there,
Never to part !
Snowdrop asleep in the
Loosening mould.
Crocus apeep with thy
Flame-tip of gold,
Lark song who leapest
Aloft, young and bold,
My heart groweth old, for
Joy lieth cold !

So lisped be the sweet alphabet of love ;
The lesson will be fully learned above.
A gentle saintly mother, through her blood.
Him with the germ of heavenly birth imbued ;
Later with warm and holy influence
Cherished the pure life her dear veins dispense ;
So learned he love ; fair maidens taught him now;
Many were very kind to him, I trow.
Better he learns yet from the eternal tie
True marriage, soul and body, may supply,
And from young children ; chiefly from the love
That through life-loss well nigh to madness drove :
They feared the child extinguished, and the doubt.
With tears rebellious, all light put out.
And yet I deem them sent to sorrow's school
Only for love-lore wide and plentiful.
But in that youth ancestral spirits fought
To wrest for wickedness, and bring to nought ;
He was a battle-ground for good and evil,
Like him for whom bright Michael with the devil
Contended. Ah! sweet Heaven, a parlous fate!
And who, save God, may know the final state?